Can't think of a more wasted effort then trying to compete with maintaining a package manager in your spare time than a clone from the OS vendor who can out resource, outspend, out market, out evangelize, out reach you, etc.
It would a futile endeavour, a realization acknowledged by the author, any further dev cycles on it would be wasted & are better spent elsewhere.
The most cynic part of this story is sending him an email the day before the launch with a heads-up that WinGet was launching.
And the icing on the cake is the "btw, we are giving you the exclusive so keep it secret".
Like, wtf. He ain't TechCrunch. Why the fuck are they giving him that exclusive? Nothing yells "we stole your stuff, but dude it was open source so you really can't complain, and thanks for the idea" more than that.
I mean, getting an email like that is bad, but it's better than not getting an email like that :D
Last year a huge game company released something built on my tiny open-source game engine (uncredited), and I only found out about it later from a kind internet stranger. All things considered, better to know in advance so you can at least have your own response ready, so you can comment in the relevant HN/reddit threads, etc.
That said, the "keep it secret" part of the mail here does sound weird, but given the other history there may have been an NDA in place.
But there is the promise of your OSS engine being used again, future potential. Microsoft essentially cut this person off from being involved in the future of Windows packaging and only told him 24 hours in advance. I'd need that amount of time just to process.
Sure, all I said is that getting the email is better than not getting it. Obviously his case was worse than mine, the one just reminded me of the other - partly the lack of credit, and partly because the company in my case was owned by Microsoft.
Thanks for sharing. I actually wonder now if your experience happens fairly often, and Keivan's experience infrequently, though they're fairly similar circumstances. Integrating OSS or OSS concepts into a program vs a library have different implications but the engineering work required is the same. WinGet on paper, as a product, meets all of the requirements desired by the community. To appreciate the toll it takes on your competition in the OSS community is just alien compared to rules around corporate competition, where in the US there is effectively no scrutiny around imitation. It's a natural place for a team at Microsoft to land. I wish in your case that you didn't have to find out third-hand, but it does seem satisfying to think a bespoke game engine had that much reach!
Yeah, I think what we're talking about is surely the norm... Sending "hey we're releasing something built on your project" emails isn't in anyone's job description, after all. And there's no real upside, but the potential downside is that someone takes offense, tries to spoil your announcement, etc.
That said, in my case the summary makes it sound better than it actually was. The game they released was a one-off promo thing, which made a big splash for a few days but was effectively dead by the time I heard about it a week or two later. Then there followed a dialog with a separate team inside Microsoft, about hopefully updating it, which dragged on for a while and basically resulted in their bit getting updated but not mine, etc. etc. Altogether it was a big distraction and a pretty dreary episode.
That was just MS sending "Thoughts & Prayers" for the death of his multi-year efforts that they've cloned & looking to extinguish & claim originality credit for with their celebratory announcement.
Not clear if they were trolling or just tone deaf.
I took at as Microsoft tending their new, more community oriented image. Apparently they mailed the Chocolatey team too. I think the intent is that we should see MS as “it’s unfortunate they had to step on toes like this but Windows needs as package manager. At least they contacted some parties involved, even a day in advance!”
I might be wrong, but I read this as an apology from a PM that tried to get something done for the guy he based work off, but ended up never managing to because BigCorp got in the way.
He might have felt bad about it and clear part of his conscience, or try to soften the blow.
That was bad but I thought the worst part (icing) was "our package manager will be open source too so obviously we would welcome any contribution from you". Wow!
what is the point of an exclusive if you have to keep it secret - I mean if he were TechCrunch for example, if he got the exclusive I guess he should publish, isn't that the point of an exclusive? I find it a very confusing phrase.
I'm not so sure about this because I believe package managers are one of those things that's best maintained outside of a commercial OS vendor, though one might consider RedHat as a counterexample.
It would a futile endeavour, a realization acknowledged by the author, any further dev cycles on it would be wasted & are better spent elsewhere.